I attend the Adult CF Clinic at NJH (National Jewish Health). Several years ago I realized that my doctor disposed of his smock and his stethoscope! The smock was disposable, the stethoscope wasn't a disposable. On my next visit he asked if I wanted the stethoscope, which initiated a discussion about the new protocol for keeping hospital borne diseases from happening.
This is a dedicated department in large hospitals and specialist facilities like a respiratory disease center. NJH has a full time attendant, (this is dated information) that is on the watch for compliance. I became aware of this when I was having a baseline measure of my respiration, the one where you sit in a sealed booth and hook up to a mouthpiece and clip. A half dozen technicians and doctors were monitoring the test. When I was finished, they were dismantling the hoses including my disposable mouthpiece and head straps on to the permanent plumbing and sensors. They even wiped down the walls in the booth. I've done stuff like this in the past and what they were doing was to assume nothing when a product is sold, including the issues of disease transmission.
What I am getting at is there is, or there had better be a dedicated department or person in charge of preventing hospital borne diseases. You are right to be concerned and I would be asking for a patient advocate or even the person who is responsible for managing it. I had an endoscopic ultrasound guided steroid injection into my celiac plexus done less a day from an announcement in the news about contaminated endoscopes, the special type used on me. This is at the CU Medical Center and 2016, not 1916.
Hospital borne diseases are a dirty door knob away. Here's where clean and technology fail. Hospital doorknobs and push plates are historically a high copper brass, some are just copper. It was patented in Europe in the 1800's. Copper serves several purposes but the two claims in the patent were the aseptic quality of copper and it cries to be cleaned up. Dirty hands transfer bacteria and sweat which the copper reacts with badly, the bacteria tend to die compared to wood or stainless steel, and the copper quickly discolors, betraying a door knob in need of cleaning. Before antibiotics, this was valuable, and it still is. The practice has been rendered useless by painting the knobs with a clear varnish. A good, infection reducing method lost to ignorance.
Ask them to reassure you that you can't be getting the backwash of the last patient hooked on the machine. I'm guessing that the silly shaped mouthpiece, the ones that look like miniature lamp bases, back to back, have a backflow preventer that works close enough to perfect that it's not significant. This is essentially the same way it's done at all respiratory disease centers. Everybody does it and assuming you are getting the big disposable mouthpiece, you're not in danger. You have to understand that preventing Hospitaliseases is as old as the discovery of disease transmission. It's a huge concern in medical facilities, keeping the place and equipment clean and the workforce complying with appropriate sterile technique is mission critical. I don't get upset over a pulse ox being re-used, if it was an isolation environment, you would have your own. You do make a point, the tech should hand you a sterile wipe. I guarantee that someone has been infected through the repeated use with patients. This illustrates the enormous opportunities for infection and how easily it becomes overwhelming.
My old primary doctor once said that as a patient, you have to defend yourself against the medical system.
LL
